It can be a nice feature, but definitely needs some rebalancing. My suggestions:
Problem: the fights are too hard compared to tournaments (and provinces too), and losses too high
Possible solution: reduce the squadsize (mine is currently 3258, but in spire (1st level 8th battle) 6228, which is way too much). It should be like in tournaments: start with really small and then increase it (but not higher than our own squadsize in barracks).
Problem: the 2 round battles even more harder (and even cost more)
Possible solution: it should be reduced even more (especially in first stages)
Problem: the rewards are not so good
Possible solutions (I think all needed, I've only seen the rewards of the first map):
- change the chances. Now in the most cases it gives a not really usable item (in higher chapters), like coin and supply instants with 50+% chance (or even with 90%). Reduce that, and increase the chance for other items.
- Increase amount of some rewards. The amount of spell fragments are really good, but others can be increased. The time instants are way too little (mostly 3x1 h), which isn't too much compared to the waiting times. Also in the last chest there is a diamond reward (which is good), but it's only 30. However in some previous chests there are 100 diamonds (which is good, even if the chances are lower). So it's ok to reduce the chance, but increase the amount than.
- Also the final chest (in each map) should contain a better reward compared to others
- Add some new rewards (it is possible that they are in later levels, but there is no on the first), like: Kp (e.g. 5-10), Kp instants (e.g. 15-20),
royal restoration, even
blueprint (only the last chest of the maps), artifacts (or even an 'artifact selectino kit' which can give us one artifact from the available ones, and we can choose which to get (like in foe)) and other powerful buildings from previous events (maybe in every 4th encounter): e.g. mana hut, burning pool, winter star, father tree of candy canes, ... (definitely with low chance like 5-10%, but than we would be able to win rewards we can use). Also expiring buildings would be nice (library, monument of ak, ferris wheel, outpost and
wishing well). It is always better to win something usable with low chance, than an unusable on (e.g. unicorns and other culture items).
Problem: waiting times at the gates are too high
Possible solution: reduce those times (~ divide by 4), or have waiting time only the end of each stage.
Problem: negotiation costs seems too high
Possible solution: I'm not sure if it is the final version, but if it is, than the catering costs are also too high and should be changed before it will be available. It says 'costs per offer', so I think it is the price of one guess for one person. If it is, then we have to count with at least 3-5x more resources. The costs for regular (tier 1-3) resources are ok (maybe a 10-20% reducement needed, or the first few encounters should be cheaper, like I suggested for fights (and like in tournament)). The coin and supply cost is too much (390k and 39k currently, so it is about 1-2 million coin per encounter (but at least we can use the earned coin rains for something
)). The main problem is the tier 4-6 goods, mana and seeds. Let's say I'm very lucky and need only 2 guesses to find the right person (now it asks 2600 moonstone). That is ~5000 per encounter, so the whole week costs ~240.000 (and that is only one type of good). In previous encounters it asked 2000 seeds, maybe later it asks both (or with other tier 5-6 goods), so we can't produce that much goods in one week (and also some asked ~20000 mana) (I'm in the latest chapter).
Problem: the new buildings are not good enough
Possible solution: rebalance those buildings, so they give more goods (like the winter set ones). They not worth to place, because we have better options.
Idea: that would be great if there were severals routes and we could choose which one to go. Like in FA, with the restriction of we can choose only one. So e.g. the first 4 would be the same (so only one option), then the next 4 would differ (2 different routes), then the next 4 would be the same... or something like that